Declining Population

Faction locks don’t keep people from playing, they just prevent some people from playing all of their characters in a locked campaign. Horrendous lag and frequent disconnects affect all players to varying degrees. Seems obvious to me which one is having more affect on Cyrodiil populations.

Absolutely.

But also, don't forget all of the recent changes which are despised by most experienced players.
Such as the stupid, zergfest-inducing, disconnect-causing hammer - which is universally hated by all of my friends and guildmates, and their mothers, and their dogs too.

Faction locks don’t keep people from playing, they just prevent some people from playing all of their characters in a locked campaign. Horrendous lag and frequent disconnects affect all players to varying degrees. Seems obvious to me which one is having more affect on Cyrodiil populations.

Absolutely.

But also, don't forget all of the recent changes which are despised by most experienced players.
Such as the stupid, zergfest-inducing, disconnect-causing hammer - which is universally hated by all of my friends and guildmates, and their mothers, and their dogs too.

Not everyone quit after faction lock hit obviously, you're more than likely the percentage of the population who stayed behind but that doesn't exclude the huge slice of people who quit when faction lock hit.

But what does it matter now, defending something like Faction lock at this point is meaningless, we all know the group of people who killed that one and the performance issues killed the rest, enjoy what remains of your PvP game.

It 100% is faction locks. Has NOTHING to do with performance. Performance has been awful for 4 years. Performance is in a better state now than it has been in certain periods in the past when populations were higher.

(PCEU)
I don't know a single person who has left the game or reduced their play time due to faction locks.

I have however spent a decent amount of time helping them to level up new characters for PVP - which seems like the much more reasonable way to react to faction locks, seeing as getting a new character to a good state only takes a couple of days.
That or helped them change PVE chars into PVP chars, something easily doable in an hour or two.

What I have seen though is people leaving PVP nights early, or not showing up at all, Every time due to the increasing scale of bugs, disconnects and lag.
Disappearing rams, doors not opening, that broken Hammer, keeps not showing as UA when actually open, invisible damage from sieges, the list is almost endless - and all problems that have been reported previously (some even "Fixed" but have returned).
Pair this with the faction stacking meta that does not remotely equate to PVP and add in a pathetic night-cap every single evening and people are pretty disheartened and tired of the current state of play.

So what I read from this is that One Tamriel was their biggest player gain, after that ups and downs. But the interesting thing is that they didn't manage to keep the players that joined during April with Elsweyr (which is not even close to the amount of people that joined during OT). And keep in mind tomorrow is the classic wow release date. So I guess more wow "immigrants" will depart then as well.
Oh well, who knew that a dragon's greatest weakness would be a quality patch

As the others from Xbox NA have noted, I have not seen any decline, or change at all. Last night (Sunday) we still had more than 100 in que at one point for Kaal. I was happy when I heard it got down below 30 by ten pm Central so that I could switch toons...

As the others from Xbox NA have noted, I have not seen any decline, or change at all. Last night (Sunday) we still had more than 100 in que at one point for Kaal. I was happy when I heard it got down below 30 by ten pm Central so that I could switch toons...

What server are you on where all campaigns are dead all the time?

Question, was it just kaal that was locked? Because kaal normally has alot of play on PCna.

But let's keep a couple things clear...

Zos has lowered the population cap in cyro multiple times.

And I remember a time pre Morrowind where it wasn't just 1 campaign full it was all of them, Eve lowbie had heavy traffic.

People who say PvP pop is not down are new players, or just have zero idea what they are talking about

As the others from Xbox NA have noted, I have not seen any decline, or change at all. Last night (Sunday) we still had more than 100 in que at one point for Kaal. I was happy when I heard it got down below 30 by ten pm Central so that I could switch toons...

What server are you on where all campaigns are dead all the time?

Don’t listen to this guy. It’s only gets like that on the weekend. Plus , ad takes the longest to get popped locked , that’s if they get pop locked. Even then the “queue” is automatic. They likely play for DC or EP who has way too many players.

Anyways, performance and faction lock has added to the decrease in population, two things can exist at once. As far as console performance has always been way worse than PC. I can play both.

Edited by BaiterOfZergs on August 26, 2019 9:51PM

Zerg of House Smallscale, First of his name, wielder of Volendrung, battleground hero, Cyrodiil butcher, the swifft footed, OG of the Templars and first pvpers, defender of scrolls and baiter of zergs.

The population on all PvP servers has dropped dramatically since the imposition on faction lock.......need to change something STAT. As a player who has been here since beta, I have toons of all three factions I have carefully curated for PvP, but only those eligible for the 30 day CP campaign have anyone to play with. Well intentioned but poorly executed.

Might also be performance and lag issues, too...

Lagg issues is the major (not the only) reason myself and most of my friends have currently quit logging into eso.

I didn't plan on quitting ESO and haven't 'officially' quit, but I stopped playing for a multitude of reasons:

- crown store
- crown store
- crown store
- I hate ads every time I log in
- AvA performance issues with no serious ($$$) attempt to fix
- 30-50% FPS drop bug introduced in 2015 and was not fixed the last time I checked a few months ago
- dumbed down combat design
- constant changes to combat design that require re-learning the game but improve nothing
- I hate ads every time I log in
- I hate ads every time I log in
- stop trying to sell me poop like you're my cable company

If you read the interviews from ZOS before and shortly after ESO was released, that's the game I want to play. I stuck with ESO for ages because I loved PVP, but it keeps getting worse. It will keep getting worse without a tech investment from ZOS which will probably never happen.

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster . . . when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you"
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I didn't plan on quitting ESO and haven't 'officially' quit, but I stopped playing for a multitude of reasons:

- crown store
- crown store
- crown store
- I hate ads every time I log in
- AvA performance issues with no serious ($$$) attempt to fix
- 30-50% FPS drop bug introduced in 2015 and was not fixed the last time I checked a few months ago
- dumbed down combat design
- constant changes to combat design that require re-learning the game but improve nothing
- I hate ads every time I log in
- I hate ads every time I log in
- stop trying to sell me poop like you're my cable company

If you read the interviews from ZOS before and shortly after ESO was released, that's the game I want to play. I stuck with ESO for ages because I loved PVP, but it keeps getting worse. It will keep getting worse without a tech investment from ZOS which will probably never happen.

It 100% is faction locks. Has NOTHING to do with performance. Performance has been awful for 4 years. Performance is in a better state now than it has been in certain periods in the past when populations were higher.

This has nothing to do with Cyrodiil. The PvE part of the game is doing fine. Which bad performance also affects, further proof it's faction locks.

Cyrodiil has been in decline since the game launched. We used to pop lock multiple campaigns every day of the week. That was with much higher pop caps than today as Zos has decreased the cap multiple times in just the first year of the game alone. Talk about decline. We probably lost more players in total from Cyrodiilin that first year than all the years since.

BTW, the PvE portion of the game is not doing fine. Total players it is doing ok but what we lose over time, like what was lost in Cyrodiil. is a larger percentage of the skilled players and players engaged that do good theory crafting and more. They are replaced with a much more casual player that is still good for the game but changes the environment and probably revenue. I can say that change has had a strong effect in both PvE leaderboards and the groups we see in Cyrodiil.

- crown store
- crown store
- crown store
- I hate ads every time I log in
- I hate ads every time I log in
- I hate ads every time I log in
- stop trying to sell me poop like you're my cable company

If I had to look at that full page ad that appears selling the Crown Store and allowing me access to the daily kibble, I would have quit this game a long time ago. That would drive me insane. Add-ons hide it, so my sanity is preserved, if not tenuously. Each patch and update there is a chance that ZOS will decide to break that add-on in a way that cannot be fixed.

- crown store
- crown store
- crown store
- I hate ads every time I log in
- I hate ads every time I log in
- I hate ads every time I log in
- stop trying to sell me poop like you're my cable company

If I had to look at that full page ad that appears selling the Crown Store and allowing me access to the daily kibble, I would have quit this game a long time ago. That would drive me insane. Add-ons hide it, so my sanity is preserved, if not tenuously. Each patch and update there is a chance that ZOS will decide to break that add-on in a way that cannot be fixed

You know it's actually pretty interesting how the fact that screen appears falls into the background.

I was against it because it was so obnoxious and intrusive, but now I literally log-in, click claim, click close without even thinking. I have fallen for their plans and now accept the thing I hated.

- crown store
- crown store
- crown store
- I hate ads every time I log in
- I hate ads every time I log in
- I hate ads every time I log in
- stop trying to sell me poop like you're my cable company

If I had to look at that full page ad that appears selling the Crown Store and allowing me access to the daily kibble, I would have quit this game a long time ago. That would drive me insane. Add-ons hide it, so my sanity is preserved, if not tenuously. Each patch and update there is a chance that ZOS will decide to break that add-on in a way that cannot be fixed

You know it's actually pretty interesting how the fact that screen appears falls into the background.

I was against it because it was so obnoxious and intrusive, but now I literally log-in, click claim, click close without even thinking. I have fallen for their plans and now accept the thing I hated.

I hate it because it is obnoxious and intrusive. It is the embodiment of everything i dislike about the ZOS eCommerce direction. I know it's there, but, as the saying goes, you can't fight City Hall. As it is possible to avoid the screen entirely (I only see it when I have add-ons disabled) I am willing to let it be. ZOS isn't going to suddenly become pro-player in the eCommerce department any more than a shark will go vegetarian. That puts us at an uneasy stalemate. They aren't going to drop that screen, and I am not going to accept it.

Not that they care.... That is why, when that add-on no longer functions, I won't be around for very long.

You say 100%, but the reason I took a break was because of performance mostly, and secondly because balance has totally gone down the crapper more than usual.
Faction locks had nothing to do with it.

For some people, their issue is "faction lock". I think that is a vastly minority issue, but probably not to them. The fact that it a minority issue contributes to the decision when ZOS says that they are not going to change it any time soon.

People complaining about factionlocks are "BG players" anyway (or at least people who play cyrodiil like a huge BG map)
We do not care.

About the declining population, I think it's due to the lack of diversity in terms of activities since 5 years. Same things to do everyday, sieging keeps, repairing, capturing scrolls, dethroning emperors, again and again.
Once you got your Grand Overlord title, you reroll and play to have max fun in fights but you're easy bored. BORED. because same things to do everyday in cyrodiil, you 're trying BG, but BG are worst.
SO, you 're trying pve. But pve is boring.
Then you decide to have a break. And after some weeks/months, you 're coming back and it's still boring after some days...
And the changes about combat gameplay arent really a nice suprise, so you're coming to the forum and complain.

My reason not to play PvP as much anymore is only the performance. I just want to relax after a long day, so I don't need those moments of frustration when the lag kills me and not the skill of another player.

People complaining about factionlocks are "BG players" anyway (or at least people who play cyrodiil like a huge BG map)
We do not care.

About the declining population, I think it's due to the lack of diversity in terms of activities since 5 years. Same things to do everyday, sieging keeps, repairing, capturing scrolls, dethroning emperors, again and again.
Once you got your Grand Overlord title, you reroll and play to have max fun in fights but you're easy bored. BORED. because same things to do everyday in cyrodiil, you 're trying BG, but BG are worst.
SO, you 're trying pve. But pve is boring.
Then you decide to have a break. And after some weeks/months, you 're coming back and it's still boring after some days...
And the changes about combat gameplay arent really a nice suprise, so you're coming to the forum and complain.

People complaining about factionlocks are "BG players" anyway (or at least people who play cyrodiil like a huge BG map)
We do not care.

This.
Cyrodiil is not a BG... it's called ALLIANCE war for a reason.

If someone wants to be switching factions whenever the wind starts blowing another direction, then they don't belong in Cyrodiil, plain and simple.
Such people should just play BGs. It does not help that BGs suck now, though

Faction locks don't stop players from stacking on the winning side. They don't stop winning team joining. On PC EU usually the dominating faction on the 30 day CP campaign is the lowest populated one on the noCP campaign and vice versa. Don't try to tell me that's a coincidence. It is most likely the case on other servers too. It has been like this before the locks and nothing has changed since then. Campaign swapping and players logging off when they get rekt or only playing when the have an easy time are the main reasons for faction imbalance and faction locks do absolutely nothing to inhibit such behaviour.

And while the locks are certainly not the only reason for the declining amount of players, chances are high that they do have a negative impact, considering how many players dislike them.

Also Cyrodil is not compareable to BGs. BGs are not an alternative for open world PvP and factions are not equal to BG teams.